OK, so I have been saying that I am new to all this horse ownership and am having to learn on my own. We have owned Hootie for about 3 years now and he has been "as healthy as a horse!" No problems. Thank goodness because he's put up with a lot of our mistakes as we are learning. The only problem I have to admit with him is that he is quite pushy and what some might call "hot".
When we bought him, he was being fed sweet feed, at the first barn, their standard feed is sweet feed and the second barn he went to...you guessed it, sweet feed. So, of course, I knew no different and when we brought him home a year ago, we kept him on what he was used to.
Well, after reading, and reading, and reading I find out that this could be adding to his "attitude". So we weaned him off of sweet feed to Strategy pellets. He's been off of the sweet feed totally for about a week. O.M.G.!! What a HUGE difference! Now, don't get me wrong, he is far from the well-mannered, humble horse I would love to have but he is SO much better and easier to deal with. He actually comes over to ask for loving instead of stomping off in disgust when you try to show him affection. he doesn't pull back when he's being led. He's a NEW horse...I think it helped when we brought Joe in last week too but I do believe that the feed was the ticket. He's so much more calm.
I just had to share that this old dog can learn new tricks...

We started adding 1/2 cup of aloe vera juice to his feed twice a day to ease the move from sweet feed and to clear up any stomach issues he may have had from all the sweet feed. We'll do this for another week or so and then stop.

That's awesome that you saw such a drastic difference so quickly! It's amazing how feed can affect a horse. And good for you for taking the initiative and reading up on horse diet. So many people are ignorant to the fact.

Good on you for bothering to do your homework & deciding to quit feeding him the 'junk food'. I also suggest you(& he) may benefit from learning more about hoof function & the effects diet can have in this regard, to avoid or treat any of those problems that you may find. hoofrehab.com & safergrass.org are 2 good sites that come to mind.

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